{"id":1312454,"date":"2023-11-04T04:11:26","date_gmt":"2023-11-04T04:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenqueen.com.hk\/?p=68420"},"modified":"2023-11-04T04:11:26","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T04:11:26","slug":"the-net-zero-challenge-carbon-offsets-need-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/04\/the-net-zero-challenge-carbon-offsets-need-to-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"The Net-Zero Challenge: Carbon Offsets Need to Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span> 5<\/span> Mins Read<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n By Mark Schapiro<\/em><\/span>, Capital & Main<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Fossil fuel companies are no longer<\/strong> denying the realities of climate change \u2014 which many of them reported on privately for decades. Instead, they\u2019re attempting to position themselves as key players in the \u201clow-carbon transition.\u201d And key to that is the companies\u2019 embrace of the mantra of \u201cnet-zero\u201d emissions. As we sweat through what a climate scientist has called a \u201cgobsmackingly bananas<\/a>\u201d heat wave \u2014 three record-breaking months from July through September \u2014 the claims of net zero emissions are becoming ever more deeply entwined with fossil fuel companies\u2019 public relations strategies.<\/p>\n Net zero is the idea<\/a> that emissions in one place \u2014 an oil refinery or the cars and planes using its products \u2014 are balanced out by the removal of carbon dioxide in another place. The elegance in that equation, which may make sense in a classroom, gets messy when it turns out that most of those other places intended to balance fossil fuel emissions are trees, which absorb CO2 and are located primarily in tropical forests<\/a>.<\/p>\n The difficulty in tracking emissions reductions based on promises to reduce deforestation in such distant and complicated ecosystems has prompted a rising chorus of scientists, think tanks, U.N. officials, research institutions and journalists who say it\u2019s time to blow apart the system of carbon offsets. It\u2019s time to return to the heart of the matter, they argue: reduce greenhouse gas emissions where they\u2019re produced. Cut through the PR smokescreen, and it becomes clear that the carbon offsets approach to net zero emissions produces practically zero results.<\/p>\n At a conference of international investigative reporters last month in Gothenberg, Sweden \u2014 most of whom came from outside the United States and were affiliated with the Global Investigative Journalism Network<\/a> \u2014 a repeated theme was accountability of the fossil fuel companies for the massive damage from climate change. On panels and in the hallways, there was a sense that it was time to challenge oil and gas companies\u2019 promotion of net zero climate strategies.<\/p>\n The rise of net zero has fueled a rise in what\u2019s known as the \u201cvoluntary carbon market,\u201d \u2014 a multibillion market for the buying and selling of carbon offsets. At the conference, Jim Footner, director of the British-based climate research firm ARIA<\/a> (analysis, research, insight, action), said that about 100 countries and more than a third of the world\u2019s largest corporations have net zero targets. \u201cNet zero is a veneer,\u201d Footner said: \u201cAn empty space that companies can promote without being specific.\u201d<\/p>\n I was on a panel with Leo Hickman, editor and director of Carbon Brief<\/a> \u2014 a U.K.-based research institution and publication that deals with the economics of climate change and carbon markets. He shared the institution\u2019s recent findings: <\/a><\/p>\n Most forest-based offset projects \u2014 the heart of net zero claims \u2013 played no significant role in decreasing deforestation, a recent study in Science<\/em><\/a> concluded. That study assessed the veracity of emission-reduction claims in 26 offset projects in six countries.<\/p>\n For journalists, any claims to offsetting emissions by preserving trees in a distant forest warrant some immediate questions:<\/p>\n An Associated Press investigation <\/a>cited in the Carbon Brief report asked such questions when they discovered that offsets claimed by oil companies Shell and Total were in forests that were still being deforested. Similarly, in areas of Brazil and Cambodia claimed as offsets by Marathon Oil, steel producer ArcelorMittal S.A. and Uber, deforestation rates actually increased, according to U.K.-based Climate Home News. <\/a>A collaborative investigation<\/a> by The Guardian<\/em> and German newspaper Die Zeit<\/em>, meanwhile, found that 90% of the projects ostensibly validated by American company Verra were in fact \u201cworthless\u201d and delivered nothing close to the carbon sequestration that companies \u2014 including Shell, Disney and Gucci \u2014 claimed.<\/p>\n Concern over the veracity of offsets that are central to most net zero claims is rising even among financial authorities. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission\u2019s Whistleblower Office in its Division of Enforcement issued an alert last summer<\/a> calling on whistleblowers to come forward to report any instances of \u201cfraud or manipulation\u201d in the carbon offset marketplace.<\/p>\n In addition to oil and gas companies, the finance industry jumped on the net zero bandwagon. Two-thirds of the world\u2019s 50 largest banks, and 37 of the world\u2019s 50 largest asset managers publicly committed to net zero portfolio targets, according to the New Climate Institute<\/a>. The think tank, made up primarily of financial and policy analysts, concluded that most of the commitments were a diversion from real emission reductions.<\/p>\n While claiming net zero aspirations, the dozen biggest oil companies are meanwhile channeling at least $100 million a day<\/a> through 2030 in search of new deposits of oil and gas \u2014 the burning of which would virtually guarantee the increase in global heating would exceed two degrees Celsius. And of course, every offset that\u2019s not actually offsetting anything translates into more greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere. Increasingly sophisticated and insightful research and news reporting suggest that there\u2019s plenty of source material for journalists to put the spotlight on net zero claims by the fossil fuel industry and its many enablers in the finance and PR industries.<\/p>\n The challenge for journalists has shifted. Thankfully we\u2019re long past the kabuki theater days of \u2018he said, she said<\/em>\u2019 reporting on the evidence for climate change. Now it\u2019s about separating the fact from the fiction in the responses by industry, and everyone else, to the climate crisis.<\/p>\n This article by Capital & Main<\/a> is published here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now. <\/em><\/p>\n The post The Net-Zero Challenge: Carbon Offsets Need to Stop<\/a> appeared first on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/span> 5<\/span> Mins Read<\/span><\/span> Stop pretending planting trees can justify fossil fuel emissions. By Mark Schapiro,\u00a0Capital & Main Fossil fuel companies are no longer\u00a0denying the realities of climate change \u2014 which many of them reported on privately for decades. Instead, they\u2019re attempting to position themselves as key players in the \u201clow-carbon transition.\u201d And key to that is the companies\u2019 [\u2026]<\/p>\n The post The Net-Zero Challenge: Carbon Offsets Need to Stop<\/a> appeared first on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1748,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[478,12213,68818],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314675,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312454\/revisions\/1314675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Stop pretending planting trees can justify fossil fuel emissions.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Carbon Brief’s net-zero findings<\/h2>\n
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From oil and gas to finance: net-zero is everywhere<\/h2>\n